a deal to end a crippling strike at the busiest port -- one of the busiest ports in america. a walkout with a multibillion dollar impact around the country. >> 10,000 workers will be back on the job at the ports of los angeles and long beach today, which handle about half the cargo coming into the u.s. an overnight contract agreement ends an eight-day walkoff that kept billions upon billions of dollars in cargo from getting to warehouses nationwide. crucial merchandise in these days before christmas. they estimated it was about $1 billion a day that this strike was going on. >> it's over now. that's the good news out of l.a. this morning. >>> now, we turn to the battle over how to keep the nation from going over that so-called fiscal cliff. the clock is ticking now. 27 days to go. >> and president obama and congressional republicans are making plenty of sound bytes about it all. but very little progress. abc's tahman bradley has the details from washington. >> reporter: democrats and republicans remain light years apart. here's president obama, in an interview with bloomberg